Jade Craven - The Prolificwriter From Down Under

An Interview by jeff

As if Australia didn’t have enough all-star bloggers, I discovered one more by the name of Jade Craven. Jade is most well known for launching and operating the blog, TheProlificWriter.com, a site dedicated to writing, networking, and providing case studies of people putting the tactics into practice. In this interview, Jade and I discuss the planning of the launch of the blog, monetization, blogging in and from Australia and a whole lot more.

First, tell us just who exactly is Jade Craven and what it is she does for a living?

Quite frankly - I’m a university dropout who had a nervous breakdown about 18 months ago. Prior to that, I was a kick arse journalism student who wanted to eventually break into the magazine scene.

Do you currently operate any other websites besides theprolificwriter.com?

I have two other public blogs that I will be launching by the end of the month. One is www.australiarevealed.com and the other is a local niche blog, www.geelonggirl.com . I have a portfolio of 6 or so sites that I’ll be working on over the next year and testing different monetization methods. I’ll then narrow them down to the most profitable and keep working a core group of sites, including the Prolific Writer.

You call Austrailia home just as Darren Rowse does. A very notable figure in the land down under. Have you had the chance to meet Darren in person? Also, what is the blogging scene like in your neck of the woods?

I haven’t had the chance to meet Darren in person, yet, although I’d really love to. I live in Geelong, a large city about an hour away from Melbourne. I believe thats helping with accidental networking as I’ve really been able to identify with a lot of his tweets about football and travelling. The blogging scene locally is awesome. I go up to Melbourne regularly and there’s always this feeling that I could be walking past some of my blogging idols. These guys aren’t common in the larger blogosphere but are really big in the local blogging scene; people like Skellie, Karen Andrews (www.miscmum.com) and Neil Creek. On a larger scale - we don’t have the conference/convention scene in the same way that the US does. It’s signifanctly more time consuming and expensive to do so, which is a shame. I’d love to meet some of my overseas blogging idols, like yourself.

On  Theprolificwriter.com, you have an old but still relevant article on Twitter. How have you used social media to propel the blog forward and create those network connections?

I’ve never really understood the power of social media until I started using Twitter. I spent all of 2008 just trying to form friendships with a lot of the people I admired. I went into social media without any intentions of drawing traffic to my site, or building a brand. I’d pick people out that seemed fascinating and just get to know them better. I chose Shai Coggins and Darren Rowse mainly because they were technology geeks. Those connections accidentally helped me get 3000 visitors in my first week of blogging.

Ironically, I was offered a guest post on Problogger before my blog was even finished. I’d emailed Darren a couple of times asking blogging questions and one was too complex to answer via email. I had a brief chat about aussie tax structures - of all things - and at the end, he said that he’d be willing to help when it came time to launch. I took advantage of that kind offer last week. A couple of my posts were tweeted and then retweeted. I’ve had my content linked to by a couple of top sources and its helped give me a solid start.

What are your goals for the site? Despite recently launching, are you already on your way to achieving those goals?

Very much so. I’m aware it’s very hard to monetize the blogging niche and currently, have little intention of doing so. My main goal was to accelerate the learning process. I’d been watching the blogosphere for a year and felt that I’d learnt all I could without taking action on it. Since launching, I’ve learnt about the power of leverage and how people respond to information. Honestly, I learned more from one high profile guest post than I did from a 6 month blogging course. Eventually, I want to turn the site into a hub for prospective writers. I want to take it beyond blogging and show the many ways people can make a viable income from their writing.

What advice would you give someone who is in the position to launch their own blog?

Make sure you know how you want your site to evolve over time. I have a rough 3 year plan for all my sites which detail how I can extend it beyond a blog should I need to. This helps to know exactly what audience you want to target, and also the content you want to write.

Also, make sure to network, network, network. Don’t do it for personal gain, do it because you genuinely want to. When I tweet someone, it’s because I genuinely want to be part of their world. Often, people will recognize that and be more than willing to help you out when the time comes.

What do you think is the future of blogging?

I think the future of blogging is going to be amazing. I think we’ll see blogs go beyond the typical wordpress set up and become these huge ‘hubs‘ of information. New forms of media will be embraced and eventually, mainstream audiences will realize that the blogs are where the authentic information is and will start flocking towards it  Blogging and new media will change the face of marketing even more than its done and I think that us consumers will be better for it.

This Interview was published on January 14, 2009 at 8:27 am • Did you like it? Subscribe!
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